The Nest Theatre began in the fall of 2016. After a few location bounces, The Nest is in its new home at 2643 N High St. This location was actually the first space that the owners looked at! It is right in between Hounddog’s Pizza and Ace of Cups making it a perfect clubhouse for improvisers and audiences, both centrally located and suburban fans alike.

The Nest houses CBus Improv Theatre (medium & Chicago-style longform), ComedySportz Columbus (the worldwide league of shortform, popularized by Whose Line?), scripted sketch comedy shows (popularized by the Second City of Toronto & Chicago), as well as world-famous improvised musical duo, HERE the Musical.

Regarded as the first training center in central Ohio for longform improvisation, we host a four-level professional school for hopefuls as well as a notable “hobbyist” program for non-performers. Seasonal electives are offered in Applied Improvisation (Corporate Training), Television Writing (late shows and pilots), and Sketch Writing.

Private parties and events will be commonly hosted at the theatre, and our TourCo handles off-site events! Corporate teams can also study with the best in our customized 1, 2, or 3-hour workshops on-site or at your office.

Tara DeFrancisco

TARA DEFRANCISCO was a headlining performer at iO (on the Deltones, Chaos Theory, Armando, defrancisCo), ComedySportz (Mainstage), and a three year vet of the Second City Touring Company. She’s taught for those theatres and independently, both at home and internationally. Media-wise, you might see her in a Las Vegas commercial campaign, on Delusions of Grandeur (ABC Family/Blip TV), in the feature film The Life & Death of an Unhappily Married Man (2015), or in several projects filmed for the satirical newspaper, The Onion.

She is also the founder and president of The Improv Retreat (http://theimprovretreat.com), the acclaimed and beloved summer camp for adult improvisers in the midwest. Tara and Rance perform Here: The Improvised Musical (a two person longform improvised musical) around the world. Tara has won numerous awards, including Top Performer in Chicago from New City, Funniest Person in Chicago by the Free Press, Top 25 Of Comedy in the US by Curve Magazine, as well as Chicago Tribune Show of the Season for the long running renegade feat, defrancisCo.

Rance Rizzutto

Hi, I’m Rance Rizzutto. I started doing improv with ComedySportz in Portland as well as joining Portland’s longest running sketch comedy troupe, The Third Floor. I performed with both until making the decision to head to Chicago!

Since moving to Chicago in 2003 I have performed with ComedySportz, Chicago, DSI (The Beatbox), Silent Treatment (award winning two-person silent improv), seven8nine, and various other improv teams and venues. My last Chicago performances were performing with Chaos Theory, The Deltones, and Here: The Improvised Musical.

Second City also hired me to perform improv and sketch with their theatrical division aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL). I’ve performed sketch and improv all over the seas. Caribbean, Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, and in late 2009, the Pacific Ocean…Hawaii. All in all, I’ve spent 17 months traveling and performing aboard cruise ships. That’s a LOT of buffet food.

Traveling with Second City also made possible one of my favorite improv opportunities: sitting in with the Istanbul, Turkey improv group Istanbulimpro and singing about swearing with cultural awareness (SFW).

After years of performing, I started teaching as well. I currently teach for iO, and have taught for ComedySportz and Second City in the past. People come from all over the world to study improvisation in Chicago, and I’ve been thrilled to help people grow.

Best yet, in 2014 iO sent Tara and I to Europe to teach their 3-day intensives. In that time we also got to perform Here in Estonia, Germany, Copenhagen, and Latvia.

Since then, Tara and I have upped our touring tally to 51 cities in 18 countries as of (May 2017) with more on the horizon.